KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday said that the faulty census of 2017 had shown 47.8 million population of the province but a Unicef survey suggested that the population of Sindh stood at 61.04m.

“If the population of the province is counted at 61.04 million, the share of the province in the national resources will go up from about 24 per cent to 29pc,” he added.

Speaking at a press conference here at CM House, Mr Shah said that the 2017 census was conducted after 19 years of the 1998 census, but it became controversial as soon as its provisional results were declared during the tenure of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government.

“Almost all the chief ministers, including the Punjab CM had criticised its results,” he said, adding that the 2018 election was held under the provisional results of the 2017 census for which the PML-N government had taken all the parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party in Sindh and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on board.

According to 2017 census, on average 5.64 persons live in a household in Sindh compared to KP’s 8.03 persons per household

Mr Shah said that the Council of Common Interests (CCI) decided that one per cent of census blocks would be verified. A similar suggestion had also been given from the Senate and the senators had also prepared a document but the federal government in the CCI had vowed to verify five per cent of the census blocks.

He said that on May 27, 2018 the Statistics Division informed the CCI that they could not verify five per cent of the blocks.

The chief minister disclosed that in the 2017 census it was said that Sindh had total 8,478,047 households with 5.64 persons per house that constituted a population of 47,854,510.

“As per the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey undertaken by all the provincial governments in coordination with Unicef the average household for Sindh is 7.2 persons per household,” he said.

He added that based on the Unicef survey the total population of Sindh would come to 61,041,938 as opposed to 47,854,510 shown in the 2017 census.

Mr Shah said that the 2017 census said that the number of a household in KP was 8.03 persons and it had a total of 3,801,046 households, therefore, its population came to 30,508,920.

He said that as per the Unicef survey KP had 7.6 persons per household, therefore, its population would be 28,887,950.

He said that Punjab had 16,999,685 households with 6.47 persons per household and their population as per the census stood to 109,989,655, whereas the Unicef survey said it had 6.3 persons per household, meaning its population would be 107,098,016.

He said that the census said that Balochistan had 1,745,994 households with 7.06 persons living in a household and its population came to 12,335,129, whereas the Unicef survey said it had 7.7 persons per household and it meant the population of Balochistan would be 13,444,154.

Aggravating Covid-19 situation

Mr Shah said that the Covid-19 situation was aggravating and he had proposed to the federal government to ban interprovincial transport for at least two weeks so that the spread of the virus could be contained.

He said the situation could have been better if the government banned all modes of transportation.

The CM said that he was told that the new virus, UK variant, was brought here by the people who travelled from England to Pakistan.

“The federal government should have made screening and other arrangements at the airports, but this was not done,” he said, adding that as a result the virus spread almost all over the country and now the British government had put Pakistan on its travel ban list.

Mr Shah said that the British government had vaccinated over 50pc of its population but hardly 0.5pc population was vaccinated in Pakistan.

He urged the federal government to make necessary arrangements for mass vaccination.

Talking about the protests staged by the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in Sindh, the CM said that sit-ins were staged at 26 places and 24 of them had been cleared.

He said that five people were killed and 18 wounded, including 12 policemen, in the protests across Sindh.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2021